JOBS AHEAD
Wash out any empty baskets and pots and fill with new compost and a bright display to see you through winter. Ideal plants include cyclamens, heather, pansies, and violas.
Gather up fallen leaves and bag them up. Punch a few air holes in the bags, and store them behind a shed or garage, for up to 18 months, to make the most fabulous leafmould conditioner for your soil.
Check stacked bonfire piles carefully before lighting to make sure no hedgehogs or other wildlife are sheltering in the centre.
Dahlia tubers can be lifted after the first frost, cleaned off and stored in a cool, frost-proof place until next spring.
Deciduous shrubs that you wish to move to a new location can be dug up carefully and moved now.
Think about adding some winter aconite, Eranthis hyemalis, and crocus bulbs to your borders to feed early insects from January and February.
Squash and pumpkins can be gently raised onto bricks to keep them off wet soil and expose the skins to more sun in order to ripen well.
Plant garlic, onions, shallots, and spring cabbages in raised beds or free-draining soil over winter, then cover with fleece when the threat of frost looms.
If you choose not to plant anything over winter, rather than leaving vegetable beds bare, sow a green manure to add extra goodness to the soil and outcompete the weeds.
Cut fruited stems of autumn-fruiting raspberries down to the ground later in the month after fruiting.
Save money by ordering bare-root fruit canes, bushes, and trees to plant from now until early spring.
Divide established crowns of rhubarb which have become congested. Lift the clump with a spade then split into pieces, ensuring that each has at least one good bud for replanting. Plant 1m (3’) apart with the bud just above the level of the soil.
Wash greenhouse glazing to let in as much weaker autumn daylight as possible. Scrub down greenhouse staging with disinfectant to make sure pests and diseases do not have a chance to overwinter inside.
Pelargoniums should be brought indoors to a cool, light place, such as an unheated greenhouse or porch to over-winter. Cut them back hard with secateurs to 10cm (4”).
Tropical plants should also be brought under cover to protect them from damaging winds and wet, winter weather.
Large clumps of herbs such as chives, marjoram, and lemon balm can be lifted, divided, and replanted in new clumps to bulk up for next year.
Take cuttings of shrubby herbs like lemon verbena, thyme, and rosemary to pot up and increase stock.
